I have to blog about this.

In a certain leftist website, on a certain discussion board, there have been two recent threads on trans issues.

The first, started by a trans ally in the feminist forum, was about the exclusion of trans women from the new Vancouver Women’s Health Clinic.

Link to thread.

The level of discourse on the thread, on which nobody self-identified as trans, went from arguments such as “what’s to stop any man from claiming he’s a woman to access services?” to “women are defined by our woman bits”. Basically, between and amongst the few allies and supporters and anti-oppression people, a bunch of transphobic, trans-ignorant and downright hurtful assholes. 

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I was first notified of this news in a thread on a discussion board I frequent.

Then I saw this link in the Huffington Post.

Some history: 

 I grew up listening to Q107. I listened to it from 1978 to the late 1980s. I don’t think there was a huge reason for me to stop, other than associating it with being younger and more immature. Sadly, there weren’t political reasons for why I stopped.

During the years I listened to Scruff Connors, Scruff and Geets, “the mighty Q”, I learned a great deal about the world I was living in. I learned about gender. I learned about masculinity, I learned which kinds of women are “sexy” and which are not, I learned about whiteness, I learned about race and racism and I learned about class and money.  I learned about what matters (the Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays) and what doesn’t (whatever the DJs named). It was a glimpse into a world in which white men said exactly how they felt, and were clear in their hegemony and rightfulness to be there. I learned that left-leaning governments only want to raise taxes and are not good for everyday people.

I learned all of that.

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